"What you gonna do with all that water?" Jordy asked suspiciously.

"We are going to take a bath, boy."

"Shhittt!" Jordy said.

While Jordy was bathing, Ben boiled the boy'sclothing and hung it up to dry. "Have to get him some clothes soon," he muttered.

"I'm done!" Jordy called from the house.

"Did you wash your hair?" Ben called.

"Shhitt!"

Ben had thought the boy's hair was brown. As it turned out, it was blond. The boy also had scars on his back and legs. Ben asked him about the marks.

"Warlord caught me two seasons ago,"

Jordy explained. "Wanted me to be his servant-person. He beat me with a whip. I finally got my chance and run off. I'll kill him if I ever see him again."

Ben suspected the boy had also been s.e.xually abused. But if he did not wish to talk about it, Ben would not force him to relive those memories.

"I ain't got no last name, you know, Mr.

Raines?" Jordy said.

"Call me Ben. I know, Jordy."

"I thought of one."

Ben smiled, knowing what was coming. "Oh?"

"Raines. If you don't mind."

"I don't mind a bit, Jordy. Jordy Raines. Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?"

"Yes, sir-Ben."

Ben cut north on Highway 101 the next morning, connecting with U.s. 160. He turned west. He stopped at every house along the way, searching for clothing for Jordy. He found a winter jacket in a cedar chest at one house, some jeans packed in a trunk at another, underwear and shirts at another home. At the last house, Ben found a .22-caliber pistol and several boxes of long rifle ammunition for the weapon. There was a holster and belt with loops for the weapon. Ben rubbed oil into the old leather and gave the weapon to Jordy.

"I'll teach you how to use this, Jordy. You're young, but you need to be armed."

Jordy smiled and stepped out onto the porch of the home. He skillfully loaded the weapon and took aim at a box in the yard. He put all six slugs into the small box.

"Well, now," Ben said with a smile. "Looks like I found a backup, partner."

The next few days pa.s.sed uneventfully, with Ben and Jordy traveling slowly westward, staying on Highway 160 until reaching the junction of State Highway 76. They took that through the Mark Twain National Forest, and it was slow going, for the road was badly deteriorated, with many downed trees and limbs that had to be removed. Ben began playing a game with Jordy, teaching him his ABO'S.

by a.s.sociating each letter with an object. Ben was feeling proud of himself until he pointed out a "possum.

"Opossum," Ben said.

"Huh?"

"The letter O.Opossum."

Jordy looked at him. "Sir, that there is a plain of 'possum."

"Get the dictionary, Jordy."

"What for? I can't read the d.a.m.n thing."

"Perhaps there will be a picture beside the word and I can point it out to you."

Jordy reached for the sack on the floorboard.

"That's the Bible, Jordy."

The boy's eyes took on a funny glint.

"Something the matter, Jordy?"

"The Bible. That sure means something to me. But I can't quite figure it out."

"I'm sure you went to church with your parents, Jordy."

"You can say that again. A bunch."

"Maybe your father was a minister-a preacher?"

"I don't know, Ben. Maybe so. I just can't remember. Let me think about that for a little bit, huh?"

"All right."

It was almost an hour later when Ben realized with a grin that Jordy had skillfully and smoothly conned him, escaping the task of learning his ABC'S.

"Pretty smooth, Jordy," Ben complimented the boy.

They were on Highway 90, nearing the Oklahoma line, just south of the Huckleberry Ridge State Forest.

Jordy smiled. "What do you mean, sir?"

"You know what I mean." He pointed to the north.

"Pineville is that way. What letter of the alphabet does the word begin with?"

Jordy laughed.

"PI.

Like in Possum!"

They were on Highway 59 heading south through Oklahoma when they had their first real trouble. Just before they reached the junction of Highway 10, Jordy pointed.

"Roadblock up ahead, Ben."

"I see it." Ben braked the truck some distance from the blockade. "Stay in the truck," he told Jordy.

Ben got out and stood behind the open door. He waited for whomever, or whatever it was behind the blockade to make the first hostile move.

"Why don't you just bust right through?" Jordy asked.

"Because I don't know if they're unfriendly or just cautious. People have the right to be cautious, boy. But their rights end when they get unfriendly, or dangerous."

He turned back to the blockade. "We're just pa.s.sing through!" he yelled. "We don't mean anyone any harm."

"Leave the truck and start walkin" back toward where you came!" the voice called.

"f.u.c.k you!" Ben muttered. "Right!" Jordy said.

"You weren't supposed to hear that, boy."

"I've heard worse."

Ben jumped back into the truck, banged his knee on the steering wheel, said a few very ugly words, and dropped the truck into reverse, swiftly backing up a couple of hundred yards. He pulled off the road, around a slight bend in the road, and got out, walking to the rear of the truck.

He took out his .30-06, slung a sh.e.l.l belt over his shoulder, and sighted in the blockade through the scope.

He waited for them to open the dance.

"Get the son of a b.i.t.c.h!" a man called, his voice faint.

"I want that fancy truck and the kid. Kill that tall b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

"Scoot out of the truck and bring me that M-16, Jordy," Ben said. "Lay it in the seat with some extra clips."

An old Ford barged its way onto the road from behind the blockade. Ben sighted it on the driver and pulled the trigger. With no front window, the slug went true, hitting the man in the face. The Ford swapped ends in the road and slid into the ditch. A man jumped out and Ben shot him in the side, spinning the man around, jerking and cursing in pain. The man fell to the road and was still.

A second vehicle roared onto the road and Ben put two fast rounds through the windshield. The car slewed to one side and the driver fell out, a hole in his throat.

Ben ran to the camper, jerked out his rocket launcher, and c.o.c.ked the hammer of the RPG. He inserted the rocket and rolled it until the grenade was locked in, mated with the U-cut. He stepped out from behind the truck, dropped to one knee, and sighted through the telescopic sight with its built-in range-finding scale. There was no wind, and the distance was three hundred and fifty meters. Ben's first shot hit true. The 85mm rocket grenade, capable of penetrating up to thirteen inches of rolled steel armor, exploded the blockade in a burst of flames and debris and human bodies.

There was a hole in the blockade large enough to drive a tank through.

Not wanting to waste his rockets, Ben stowed the RPG and the M-16 back into the camper, along with his sniper rifle, and waited outside the truck, listening to the fading moans of the badly wounded.

Ben dropped the truck into four-wheel drive and skirted the burning, smoking ruins of the blockade.

He left the carnage behind without so much as a second glance.

"Reckon why they wanted to kill you, Ben?" the boy asked.

"I don't know, Jordy. But I just don't like unfriendly folks."

"Yes, sir," the boy replied solemnly."I picked up on that right off."

Ben took a county road and skirted the town of Tahlequah. There had once been a university there, but Ben did not want to see the place in ruins. He had personally witnessed too many inst.i.tutions of higher learning in ruin. It was depressing.

He and Jordy made camp on an eastern finger of Tenkiller Ferry Lake and fished for their supper. Jordy had never sport-fished before, but he was a fast learner. Once he got the hang of casting, he was all smiles, especially when he hooked what was at least a five-pound ba.s.s and fought him to the sh.o.r.e.

"Supper, Ben!" the boy yelled.

"Supper, Jordy," Ben replied, smiling at the boy's happiness.

And his own.

They slept that night in a deserted old fishing cabin, with Ben getting up twice in the night to add wood to the fire.

"Cold as a witch's t.i.t," Jordy spoke from his sleeping bag on the floor.

"We are going to have to do something about your language, Jordy," Ben told him. "It isn't right for a ten-year-old to speak like you do."

"Why?" the boy asked.

"It just isn't."

"OK, Ben. Whatever you say. But all the kids my age that I know talk like that."

"Do you hear me talking like that?"

"No, sir."

"Bear that in mind."

"OK. Does that mean when you cuss, I can cuss?"

Ben smiled, tossing another log on the fire.

The wind had picked up, howling around the old cabin.

"No, it doesn't. But I'll try to watch my language, too. Deal?"

"Deal."

They had just crossed Interstate 40, heading south on Highway 2 when Ben's CB radio suddenly popped into vocal life, almost scaring the p.i.s.s out of Jordy.

"Son of a b.i.t.c.h!" the boy yelled.

Ben fixed him with a stern look. "I'll forgive that. This time." He reached for the mike. "Come on," he said to the unknown caller.